TWELVE DAYS OF BLOGMAS DAY EIGHT: CHRISTMAS SHORTBREAD SHAPES

Hello Everyone and welcome to day eight of the "twelve days of blogmas" and the second baking installment in the series. In the first installment i shared with you a delicious cupcake recipe, which you can check out here: http://katiebeautyshake.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/twelve-days-of-blogmas-day-four-ferrero.html
At Christmas time we can all be a sucker for normal things that have been transformed into festive shapes, i know i am one of those people. So for today's post i thought i would share with you these super cute and delicious "festive shaped" shortbread biscuits...

To make the shortbread shapes you will need:

shaped cutters of your choice

200g self raising flour

100g caster sugar

100g butter (plus extra for greasing)

1 large free range egg, lightly beaten 

1tsp vanilla extract

To decorate the shortbread shapes you will need:

icing sugar to dust (optional)

fondant icing/ black writing icing, sprinkles and chocolate drops (optional)

Method:

First of all you are going to want to pre-heat your oven to 180c/350f/gas mark 4. Then you are going to want to mix the flour and sugar together in a bowl, then rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg and vanilla essence and mix them to form a soft dough. Next you are going to want to roll out the dough onto a well floured surface and then cut into the shapes of your choice. Next place the shapes onto greased baking sheets and place into the pre-heated oven for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Once out of the oven leave them to cool on a wire rack. When the shapes are completely cool all that is left to do is decorate them however you want to, you can either roll some fondant icing out to create a "character" style biscuit (just like the snowmen shown above) or you can simply just lightly dust with some icing sugar to look like snow.

♥